In the Twilight
by midnight-blue
Summary: Bosco says goodbye


Title: In the Twilight 

Author: Kristin 

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I swear. I wish I did, but I don't 

Rating: PG 

Summary: Bosco says goodbye 

* 

Maybe wisdom comes with age, merely the simple fact that the next successive year will bring revelations about love and life and all those little uncertainties you used to beat yourself up trying to figure out. 

I think, though, wisdom comes with knowing who you are, knowing what you've been, what you'll become. It's all about learning from what you've seen and what you'll do with that knowledge. Sometimes the most wisdom comes from the faces of strangers, and in seeing them, in knowing them, we really live. 

* 

So I took a walk one day -- so long ago. I liked to walk in the fall, walk around the city and in it, so I could step outside and walk back in and really think about what was happening around me. The leaves had started to turn those traditional autumn colors and I made it a point to watch the people around me. 

I liked to watch people, learn from them, mostly because I was a writer. I got my ideas and my views on how things should be from just watching. 

So this one day, I happened to see this couple -- not really a couple, but you knew -- looking at them, you just knew. They were partners, cops. It was cold, so they had their long-sleeved uniforms on and they were walking casually, sipping coffee or hot chocolate, something warm and comforting. 

They shared some stories and jokes, bantered and smiled. 

Yeah, they were partners, but something more. I wouldn't have known it, maybe, except I caught him, the guy, watching the girl. She had her hair up, but a few strands had fallen away, blown around by the slight breeze. Her hands clutched the cup tightly and she sort of looked away for a brief moment, at what, I don't know. 

Maybe she was thinking about him. 

But she looked away and he looked at her and I'll never forget it, I never will, because when he looked at her, I knew that she was the reason he existed. 

Then she turned around and smiled, he smiled back shyly, afraid he'd been caught, trying to cover for himself, and then threw himself back into a friendly banter as they walked past me. I pulled the scarf around my neck and glanced at them one last time, thinking if I ever knew what love was, it was because of them. 

* 

A few weeks later, the wind picked up, the trees lost their leaves; everything seemed to be dead or dying. 

Everything was changing. 

I wish, to this day, and always, that I hadn't taken my walk that day. I didn't help much, no one could -- because when fate and God decided something, no one could really fix it. I just wish I hadn't seen it, I really wish I hadn't. 

It had started to snow, but I'd forgotten my gloves, so I burrowed them into my pockets, deeply, safe from the bitter wind. It was too cold to be outside on a day like this, much too cold. The spot I happened to be walking in was fairly deserted, unusual, I thought, for this time of year -- when the tourists shuffled around like mad to skate in Central Park, see the tree in Rockefeller Center, all before vacation time ran out and they had to return to their drab, normal lives. 

So I started walking home, and I heard it, this shouting, and the sound of multiple footsteps in a chase. I turned around and saw them coming, the two cops, chasing a thug. The few people that were on the street got out of the way, and I searched for a refuge myself. 

The woman darted forward fast, drawing her gun as she ran. Her partner had tripped on the curb as he came around the bend and she whipped around, shouting his name. 

"Bosco!" 

She turned around to be sure he was okay, content as he got up just as quickly and prepared to rejoin her. 

Her back turned, for just that split second, the perp attacked her from behind, knocking her gun from her hands. It was a struggle, for what couldn't have been more than a few seconds. I didn't know what to do, my feet were frozen, and all the while I kept hoping he'd get there. 

Just please let Bosco get there in time. 

She was rolled onto her back and a shot rang out, so final and haunting it broke through the chilly air like a cannon, echoed off the buildings, froze Bosco in his spot for a brief moment. He was hoping, just as I, that the perp had taken the shot. 

But the guy jumped up, blood on his hands, and tried to take off again. Bosco took aim and shot him -- shot him over and over again. Maybe if he shot enough, she would stand up and be okay. 

The gun fell from his hands then, and he knew, without even seeing, that she was nearly gone from him. Her blood pooled beneath her, and her hands waved wildly in the air, calling his name. 

He walked to her with an urgency, but with each step, his face grew darker and sadder. His steps were hesitant almost, afraid to confirm what he knew to be truth. 

He had the walk of a man about to lose his entire life. 

As he knelt over her, his hands pushed back the loose strands that had fallen over her eyes. He looked at me then, yelling for me to call an ambulance. I did so and waited with him, knelt beside him, and pressed my scarf to her wound. 

She looked grateful. She was a stranger to me and I wanted more than anything to know her. It killed me that I never would. The blood was everywhere but he didn't seem to care anymore. He just kept touching her face, rubbing his hands over and through her hair, against her soft skin, memorizing her, I think. 

Years from now, he would look at his hands and see her; see her eyes, her nose, the brave smile she faked for him as she struggled to breathe. 

Years from now, he would remain just as he was now, cold from the lonely winter, willing her to simply live. 

He'd walk past those places he'd been with her, remembering, needing, wanting her again. He'd breathe her in the air -- in the warm spring afternoon, soft summer rain, the vibrant colors of the autumn leaves against the backdrop of the crisp night, and in the empty snowflakes that would blanket the ground, covering those long gone, leaving no room for second chances. 

He'll start the car at work, ready to go on duty, and wait for her to step in as well; he'll wait for her to laugh at that joke only she would appreciate as being funny; he'll wait for her to order first at that little diner down the street; he'll wait for her to say she loves him and suddenly realize she won't. 

He'll wait for her to live, only, she never will. 

He'll wait for her always. He'll never leave this moment, I think, because this is when she left him, and he has to wait, has to -- just in case. 

"Faith! Faith, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry --" 

He cradles her against him and she's already half-gone, but she smiles again for him because she needs him to be okay. 

His hands continue stroking through her hair, his hand rubbing rapid patterns against her back. He chokes on sobs against her throat, planting clumsy kisses against her skin she can barely feel in the coming twilight. 

"It's okay, Bos." 

Her voice is raspy, slurring. 

"I need you, please, Faith, you know I can't do this without you. You know that, dammit! Please, please, Faith, just don't leave me." 

He looks to the sky. 

"Whatever it takes, I'll do whatever takes, just please let her stay, please." 

I start to cry. His raw, desperate pleas for this one life to be spared are in vain, and I just cry for what's lost. 

The sirens wail as the paramedics come and he turns his head away, speaking rapidly to them. 

He doesn't hear her as he's talking, running through what happened. It's so brief, her voice so faint, and sometimes, I still wonder if she really said it at all. But I could swear, just before her eyes closed for the last time, she whispered one final conviction. 

"I love you, Bosco." 

He motioned the medics over and turned back to her, alarmed at her closed eyes, her limp form. 

The paramedics, Kim and Alex, fought their own tears as well and I could only guess they knew her too. 

More paramedics came, two more cops. 

"Bosco, it's okay, she'll be fine." I heard a cop named Sully whisper. One look in his eyes and I knew he didn't believe it himself. 

They stood around, those people, working desperately to save her, waiting to hear her breathe. They were her family, in a way. They needed her to come back. 

They fought a long, long time, not wanting to ever give up until the older guy, Doc, stood up on shaky legs, his voice broken and haunted. 

"She's gone." 

Strange, I thought, as I watched a life leave the earth on the tenth day of December, one person's life affects so many others. 

* 

It's Christmas now. Many years have gone by. I feel my own mortality at times settling in my bones. I haven't seen him for years, and he's changed. His hair is graying, there's wrinkles on his skin, around his eyes. 

He comes here often, I think, because the flowers never stay long enough to die. There's death enough here already. He speaks to her casually almost, and I hear his one-sided conversation from my vantage point. 

"Emily's getting married. I didn't like the guy at first, but he's grown on me. She's so beautiful, Faith, and she looks -- she looks just like you. Charlie's starting medical school, he wants to work in the ER. God, Faith, you'd be so proud of them." 

His bare hands, numb, I suppose, from cold, brush against the hard granite stone, tracing the lettering -- her name, the dates of her existence, settling on the frozen ground beneath us. Weathered and worn, from age and time, and all those little pains he's picked up along the way mark his skin like landmarks, reminders of things passed. There's a tiny scar below his eye from a crazy thug with a knife; a scar below his chin from that incident with the switchblade I read about years ago. His hands, I think, most of all, mark the time as it passed -- her blood once soaked them through. 

It will never wash away. 

"Merry Christmas." 

Life lurked sometimes where we least wanted it. 

"Faith, I love you. I always did. I still do. Even when you never knew -- I did. You were the love of my life." 

He pauses. 

"You were my best friend. You were all I needed. It's hurt so much, all these years. It's been so long and I miss you, I miss you so much." 

He bends over now, weeping quietly. 

"Why did you have to go?" 

The snow crunches beneath my feet as I reach his solemn form bent before her final resting place. The tears glisten in the cold air, frozen as they cascade down his pale cheek. He glances up at my presence and a wave of recognition passes over him. 

"I just came to say hi, " I say. I don't even know why I'm here. 

Maybe because I always thought of them, always thought of the smiling partners, thought of the way he looked at her when she was unaware. I always thought of the fragility of life, the nature, depth, and power of love when it was felt in its purest form, and even now, when it existed only in memory. 

He looks at me for a moment, then back at her grave, speaking distantly. 

"I lost my Faith." 

I nod, unsure of what to say. 

"She loved you." 

He looks back at me, shock barely hidden beneath his crystal blue eyes swimming with unshed tears. 

"I heard her -- that day. She said she loved you. I just -- I thought you should know that." 

He doesn't speak for a moment and I stand to walk away. 

"Thank you." 

I smile, turn away. 

He never heard her, in those last moments, and that perhaps hurts the most. In those last moments, they'd simply held each other as best friends, as they'd always been, and the truth came too late. 

He whispers once more. 

"I'll see you later, sweetheart." 

Wisdom comes with age and experience. Love comes from simply living, and Faith and Bosco had enough between them to defy the limitations of normal existence. 

The gate creaks as I close it behind me and I catch him smile at her cold marker, that same smile I saw all those years ago. 

* 

[ end ] 


End file.
